amounts to about 60 billion square feet. Research centers are being built in China that rival entire US cities in size. China’s national bird is now said to be the construction crane.

What does all that mean to an American hoping to hang on to his or her job? What is clear is that attempting to build “walls,” in the form of economic barriers, around the United States will simply ensure that we are left in isolation and become increasingly irrelevant as the rest of the world moves rapidly forward. Ironically, China itself tried this in the 15th century and again in the 20th … with the predictable result both times. The Red Queen, speaking to Alice in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, offers better advice: “Here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 500 Fifth St. N.W. | Washington, D.C. 20001